Documentary: Give thanks with Volcom!

Cranberry saucy sweet doc continues about Volcom's antebellum (pre-WW III) Pipe manors...

And here we have part two of Red Bull’s series looking into Volcom House life and what a wonderful life it is! There is surfing, training, cleaning and eating. Derek Rielly, currently en route to Israel, wrote of the first offering:

Of all the surf industries acquisitions, nothing comes close to Volcom’s snatching of two beachfront houses at Pipe for…credibility. There is nothing superfluous or gimmicky about owning two houses for your surfers that front the heaviest wave on the North Shore.

Ten years ago, the company, which was formed by the former Quiksilver marketing staffer Richard Wolcott in 1991, bought a single-storey beachfront bungalow at Pipe. It soon became a headquarters for unruly bronzed men and women ruddy with desire.

Two years later, the company dropped $4.2 million on the three-storey house built by Gerry Lopez and his Lightning Bolt partners in the seventies.

This documentary, produced by Red Bull, takes you through these gentlemanly manor houses. It will cost you roughly eighteen-and-a-half minutes, unlocking none of the secrets but revealing much of their mysterious charm.

And no secrets are revealed in this second helping either but it is fun and a welcome relief to whatever your work day holds. So feast your eyes! And your ears on the luscious baritone of that narrator! So HBO! Also, maybe watch before the WSL sends his lawyers after it…


Peter King: “It’s time to kill the WQS!”

Who's gonna miss it, right?

Two days ago, I engaged the creator of #TourNotes, Peter King, in discussion of the tumultuous 2015 WSL season. As a former professional surfer with an unmatched overview of the game, he gave a rousing and through account of the season.

In a nutshell, Filipe, best in the world, judging, prone to costly mistakes, Gabriel, big legs.

What I didn’t include in the interview, which was already a little long (who’s got the time to scroll down half a dozen pages!), was PK’s recipe for a better tour.

And let’s put this in a nutshell, too. Kill the WQS, says PK.

Shall we examine?

BeachGrit: I’m always surprised by the unwieldiness of the tour. Thirty-something guys, plus gals at a few events, two sets of loser rounds, two-week waiting periods. Test cricket is fast-paced compared to pro surfing. I believe numbers should be slashed. You?

PK: There shouldn’t be a QS. There should be one event. Everyone comes and surfs the event. I’ll explain. Snapper. You have the top 16, or whatever, and the rest go up on the Sunshine Coast for ten days to decide who goes against the top 16. Get rid of the of the WQS and that gets 12 million dollars back in the kitty. Obviously, you’re not going to have 108 guys at Cloudbreak, but there other spots in Fiji to decide the surfers. No more one stars, two stars, three stars, six stars, ten stars, no more Primes. Everyone comes to the 12 events, once a month. One hundred and sixty guys descend on a town for two weeks. So, for Trestles, they surf Oceanside for ten days. This used to be called the QS. Every heat win is worth 250 bucks so it’s worth it for everyone. Go have an event, get your 16 guys and they come up to Trestles for the main event. The whole tour is in California for a month, it’s great for rent-a-cars, it’s great for hotels. At the moment, it’s a painful system.

BeachGrit: I’m such a fan, oh such a fan, but those first two days of an event, no matter how deftly called, are drudgery.

PK: Less is more. You don’t have to broadcast until 16 guys are left surfing. You have two days of action. Best two days and we’re on. We got great talent and we got two days. An event that lasts longer than an international cricket match, well, you can’t keep everyone’s attention. It’s a tough show.

You know what all the guys say about the QS? They love it that they know…exactly… when their heat is on. My heat is happening at 11am on Thursday. It’s like a boardriders club contest. You know it’s happening and that’s that. If you’re in crap conditions, it’s crap for everyone.

BeachGrit: Worse are events in opposite hemispheres when events go on and off standby. It’s hard to wake up at two am for the possibility an event might run, and then only two or three heats.

PK: They struggle with that in France. It’s not easy to go down the beach in France, it’s called off, walking over the sand dunes, back to the hotel, come back, find parking, walk over the sand dunes. It’s a hassle. France is the hardest place. You need the right tide, the right bank. There’s some tough decisions. The moment they say it’s on, a bank pops up that’s better. Europe is brutal. You know what all the guys say about the QS? They love it that they know…exactly… when their heat is on. My heat is happening at 11am on Thursday. It’s like a boardriders club contest. You know it’s happening and that’s that. If you’re in crap conditions, it’s crap for everyone.

BeachGrit: It’s always hard to watch the two best surfers in the contest have a final in deteriorating waves, which often happens.

PK: You want to finish strong. It’d take two days to finish a premiere event in my new format. Two days. Great, we’re going today and tomorrow. It’s tough to pick good conditions for three or four days.

BeachGrit: You see it when the girls have stand-alone events. It’s wrapped in a day and a half.

Ronnie Blakey is my favourite. His fake Australian accent is amazing. It’s, like, I don’t believe the news if it’s coming from an American. It has to be read by an English person. With surfing analysis, it has to be an Australian voice. Let’s put it back in the hands of people that know.

PK: The girls’ tour is a lot easier to run. There’s so few of ‘em. You know what else I’m thinking? There should be a qualifying series for announcers. I’d sure like to see Barton Lynch qualify for the announcing booth and hear some real analysis. Did Sean-o (Doherty) lose favour along the way? I don’t know how you can’t have those voices explaining what’s going on.

BeachGrit: Tell me how you feel about Joe Turpel. I can’t imagine pro surfing without his distinctive, just below falsetto.

PK: I’ve done broadcasting before and a guy like Joe is invaluable to a webcast. If you’re a producer in the booth, you need someone who tells the audience where you are and what’s been happening. He’s so good at directing the traffic. Joe’s perfect, he’s the voice of surfing. But without calling anyone out, Ronnie Blakey is my favourite. His fake Australian accent is amazing. It’s, like, I don’t believe the news if it’s coming from an American. It has to be read by an English person. With surfing analysis, it has to be an Australian voice. Let’s put it back in the hands of people that know.

BeachGrit: Do you enjoy Pottz’s international accent?

PK: I just like him. When he was at the top of his game he signed a picture for me that read: Remember, nothing is impottzable. I never forgot it. He’s a world champion. If you’re not a world champ or an Australian, get off the stage.

BeachGrit: You want to ice the WQS, and this I hear, but what do you think the WSL got very right this year?

PK: The best thing they did was get everybody talking about surfing again. Every surf blog in the world, every surf website in the world, analyses every nuance of the WSL. All they need is us talking about it, and we’re talking.


Secret: Slater Designs launch plans!

What mysteries are up Kelly Slater's wizard sleeve?

Kelly Slater is unique in that he is both icon and iconoclast. Never content to sit on laurels it seems the man is always inventing then smashing and reinventing. And part of his focus, these days, is surfboards!

The gentleman scholars at Surfing magazine posted the dimensions of three up and coming boards on their site today. Feast your eyes on the Sci-Phi, Omni and Banana HERE shaped by Daniel Thompson (the first two) and Greg Webber (the Banana) and also read all about them in clean, refreshing prose.

Such fun! But I wondered how the Slater Designs boards would be delivered to starry-eyed consumers like you and me? Would Kelly smash the traditional surf shop model somehow like he smashed Adriano de Souza’s title celebration?

I reached out to Travis Lee, one of the most fantastic men in all of surf, for answers. Travis used to work at Channel Islands. Many years ago, Derek dispatched me to Santa Barbara to interview he. I assumed Chinese but he is so not! White like you and me and all of this year’s Oscar contenders!

And I said:

Just saw Surfing’s thing and wanted to know when will they be available? And where? Custom orders? Shops? Web? How can they people get what they crave?

Travis responded:

I’m trying to stay pretty silent ’til our consumer launch just so you know. The boards will be available at most surf shops globally in April, stocks and customs yes. The web info will be available closer to launch…

Such sleight of hand! Such subterfuge! This means, certainly, that Kelly has a secret up his wizard sleeve. But what? Could the boards be delivered via drone? Could they be delivered via drone to your beach when you are standing on the bluff realizing that you brought the wrong board for the day?

What? What are some other possibilities? How could Kelly disrupt the traditional mold? Is he waiting to announce until Filipe Toledo wins Snapper next month?

What? Help me!


Ugh: Man surfs for 30 hours!

Josh Enslin enters the Guinness Book of World Records!

Do you remember the bro, “Everyday” Dale Webster, who surfed 14,641 days in a row with a minimum of three waves per day? 40 whole years? It is an ironman streak that will surely never be broken, or even approached, but like, ugh, right? Sometimes the ocean is just an ugly tub and it is a great pleasure not to step foot in it. I tip my imaginary cap to him while at the same time surf checking and then going home.

Yesterday, another record was broken. South African Josh Enslin surfed on South Africa’s eastern cape for 30 hours and 11 minutes catching 466 waves. The previous record of 29 hours and 27 minutes had been set by American Ben Shaw.

“The toughest part for me was the 2 a.m. to 4 a.m. stretch. Conditions were freezing, fatigue had set in, and my body was freezing,” Josh told Billabong, one of his partners. “The waves had picked up as well, so I was duck diving all the time.”

And good on him too but that sounds awful. God awful.

Well now he is in the Guinness Book of World Records alongside Dale Webster. If you were going to try and break a record which would it be? I am going for Snarkily Dismissing Other’s Accomplishments Every Single Day Over the Course of a Life.


Filipe Toledo
Filipe arrived at the party and his swagger was back. Gone was the laughing stock of Teahupoo, back was the greasy acrobat. | Photo: WSL

Everyone admits: “Filipe world’s best!”

TourNotes's Peter King on the supremacy of Filipe Toledo and crummy judging decisions…

Last year I interviewed the former pro surfer turned video-journalist Peter King on his use of tour surfers as his personal marionettes. There can be no shadow of a doubt that the old crone has the good humoured admiration of all the best surfers in the world, and this includes Kelly Slater and John John Florence.

Do you watch his creation Tour Notes? Of course you do!

Why does he succeed while others hack up work solemnly tiresome and dull?

“I don’t drink, never drank, I love sugar, but I’m not threatening anyone’s space. I’m not some 26 year old shucking and jiving my way up the marketing chain. I’m not trying to be anyone’s agent, I’m not trying to be a host of the webcast, I’m not trying to make 15 dollars on a Surfline photo. There’s no jealousy. It’s just me. “

Read that interview here.  

Two weeks, ago, the noted writer Rory Parker theorised that 2015 was surfing’s dead-ball era of surfing, a boring game of numbers, surfers drilled into mindless conformity by repetitious scoring and events. And PK responded thus:

“I don’t think it was boring. I found a lot of great moments out there…not sure if the right stories though are always being told.Perhaps Rory you need to get on this tour with me! Between my #Tournotes style stories and you reporting your take on things, I think there would be an untold amount of interest generated from the Tour stops and characters …regardless of who wins what heats.”

I like PK’s candour so I interviewed him, again, for his opinion, which I believe entirely lacks prejudice, of the 2015 season.

If anyone messes up they have to leave. Except the judges. The judges don’t answer to anyone. It’s more like a supreme court than a surfing contest. I’ve sat around, watched jaws drop at scores, and a couple of days later they apologise. But there goes someone’s livelihood. Filipe great Adriano at Trestles, hands down, and yet we get to the end of the tour and Adriano’s the world champ.

BeachGrit: Rory wrote about the dead-ball era of surfing, that it was the most tedious in recent history. Do you agree or no? 

PK: He was pretty spot on. The tour’s trying to play it safe the first couple of years out to satisfy everyone. My opinion is this: Everything is up for grabs on that tour. You can be fired like that, Brett Simpson didn’t qualify so he’s kicked off, goodbye thanks for coming. If Dave Prodan, the marketing manager says something wrong, he may have to leave. If anyone messes up they have to leave. Except the judges. The judges don’t answer to anyone. It’s more like a supreme court than a surfing contest. I’ve sat around, watched jaws drop at scores, and a couple of days later they apologise. But there goes someone’s livelihood. Filipe beat Adriano at Trestles, hands down, and yet we get to the end of the tour and Adriano’s the world champ. But there’s no way he beat Filipe at Trestles. And Filipe would’ve won that event, the way he was surfing.

And you can’t tell me Gabriel got a six-five for flopping down at Pipe. There’s a lot on the line, man. All the hype and the quality of surfing, they have to get the scores right. The big question is, how do we get the world champion we all agree on? We need to show Joe Shmoe, whom the WSL made a fan of surfing, that the fix isn’t in, and if boring is being celebrated as Rory articulated, how do we show excitement? Man, I don’t know. I’m not on the board of directors. I don’t even have a backstage pass.

BeachGrit: Who’s the best surfer in the world? 

PK: Filipe is in the best surfer in the world, hands down. Everybody, everybody, admits that Filipe is the best, most exciting surfer in the world. He does a move and everyone’s jaw is down. Slater, John John, everyone knows it. He’s not the best in Tahiti, or big Fiji, or Pipe, yet, but he’s a kid and he’ll get better. He’s Brazilian so he’s crazy.

BeachGrit: You preach to the converted. I wrote a story a week or so back about Adriano, the pool, the shark, all conspiring to wipe Filipe’s three-event win season from our minds…

PK: He made everyone look ridiculous. No one had an answer. You know what I like? He claims tens. He doesn’t claim sixes. Everybody in the world can claim between nine-five and a ten. With all that stress, that’s cool. But begging for a six-five is a joke.

I think a combo of the smartest and best surfer pick would be Julian Wilson. He’s just that good in all-sized waves. I just don’t think he likes these world titles getting away from him. I feel like he let this year slip away. He probably should’ve been real close to wining that world title.

BeachGrit: What does it take to win a world title? 

PK: You can’t win without being competitive. It doesn’t accidentally happen. Adriano, he’s not afraid to get into people’s faces. Mick, Julian, Kelly. These are guys who are not ashamed to win. John John seems like he doesn’t want to offend anyone. He cruises around and when he surfs a heat looks like a freesurfer paddled into the area. You can almost hear the commentators say, “Hey freesurfer, you’re great, but get out of the contest area.”

BeachGrit: John John and a world title? A dream? 

PK: (Deep sigh) If I was reading one of those old Derek Hynd analysis in Surfer magazine, for world title, I’d say No Chance. Now, from my viewpoint, I give him a slight chance because he’s that good you can’t say no. John John should start travelling with Filipe.

BeachGrit: Are they good pals? 

PK: Totally. Filipe is the only person he took to be in his movie. He love love loves Filipe. Everyone loves Filipe.

BeachGrit: Is he an easy-to-love kinda guy? 

PK: Yeah, and the family’s amazing. So cool. The dad is completely wild and hilarious. They’re like a travelling circus. There’s twenty-seven of them! (Pause) No, but it feels like it.

Why do we have to listen to Ross Williams second-guess a score? Can we remove the middle man? How did they arrive at the decision? Do we have to hear Pottz or Ross say it was an eight five, they get a seven, and no one knows why? Can’t we just ask ‘em?

BeachGrit: How about the current state of the WSL?

PK: It’s the biggest it’s ever been globally. It’s an interesting time. These guys have a business to run with millions and millions of dollars. They’ve gotta get it right. They genuinely want to get it right. There’s nothing evil and they’re not trying to trick the public. The judges froth to surf, those guys are out there every morning, everyone’s a fan of surfing. There’s no malice. But we all pull our hair out when we see a bad decision. What can we do about it?

BeachGrit: An independent ombudsman, maybe? 

PK: Maybe the tour guys could have an app and if a decision is heinous, they can text a red dot. A red flag. If there’s enough, let’s say 17 dots, the decision gets looked at. And why can’t we listen to the judges themselves? Why do we have to listen to Ross Williams second-guess a score? Can we remove the middle man? How did they arrive at the decision? Do we have to hear Pottz or Ross say it was an eight five, they get a seven, and no one knows why? Can’t we just ask ‘em?

BeachGrit: My experience with (head judge) Rich Porta has been delightful. He’d happily explain… anything. 

Earlier in the year, earlier in the year, the judges told Kolohe airs wouldn’t be counted unless they were ridden out of perfectly. Everyone I was sitting with watching Gabriel shook their heads and could not believe he got the score. He fell down, he triple claimed. It was pathetic. It was… pathetic… that he got that score

PK: Richie is so gnarly, dude. If he wasn’t that confident, that mentally tough, he would’ve killed himself by now. He doesn’t care what you think. He loves it. Put a normal human being in that job and he’s dead…

BeachGrit: Let’s talk about Gabriel’s six-five at Pipe a little. I saw a rotation and then some, the score fitted, as it was more dazzling than another two-second, four-foot tube. 

PK: Okay, earlier in the year, the judges told Kolohe airs wouldn’t be counted unless they were ridden out of perfectly. Everyone I was sitting with watching Gabriel shook their heads and could not believe he got the score. He fell down, he triple claimed. It was pathetic. It was… pathetic… that he got that score. Someone debating about the score on text, though, was Shane Dorian. He said it was a radical move and definitely the score. Now, get Rich Porta in the booth and explain why he got a six-five. At the end of the day, go through controversial heats with Ronnie Blakey saying to Richie, “Three heavy results today. Come down and talk about it. Prove your point to me on TV.” We need to have an honest and open understanding of what’s going on.

BeachGrit: What’s your take on Gabriel, forgettable first half, sizzling second? 

PK: He’s the forgotten story. He’s been riding an SUP all year, pretty much. His surfboards are 23 inches wide and four inches thick. I could literally stand-up paddle those things. He’s unstoppable on ‘em. He’s probably got 36 litres under him. The biggest things I’ve ever seen. He’s got big thick legs. Legs like an elephant. Jordy’s legs and David Beckham’s torso. They’re contest machines. They come pre-stickered, all those stickers are laminates. He’s not wasting his time putting stickers on boards. His act is… tight.

BeachGrit: What do you think of  Kelly’s pool?

PK: It’s incredible and I hope to get there soon. But it’s just a test facility, which is lost on a lot of people. It’s not what he’s building. It’s not for everyone to come and surf. It was just some cheap land to test everything out. From what I know, it’s not a secret. He’s been trying to build it for ten years. He wanted everyone in the industry to come in on it but no one wanted to. I bet they feel stupid now. That’s probably a ten billion dollar idea. I just want to get a job as a lifeguard at one. He told me we’re going to the pool  in February. But you know Kelly. He’ll tell people he’ll bring them to Fiji, tell ‘em he’s not going, then call ‘em from Fiji to tell ‘em how good it is.

BeachGrit: What’s gonna happen on the tour this year? 

PK: Kelly Slater’s going to win the world title, Julian Wilson too. Contradictory? Yeah, but I’m covering bases.